SEOUL — Music Hae, who fled North Korea as a younger man in the course of the Korean Warfare, grew to become a beloved tv character in South Korea and was acknowledged by the Guinness World Information because the world’s “oldest TV music expertise present host,” died at his dwelling in Seoul on Wednesday. He was 95.
His dying was confirmed by Lee Gi-nam, the producer of a 2020 documentary on Mr. Music’s life, which charted a tumultuous course that mirrored South Korea’s fashionable historical past via struggle, division, abject poverty and a meteoric rise. No explanation for dying was given.
A jovial Everyman determine identified for his cheeky grin and folksy wisecracks, Mr. Music grew to become a family identify in South Korea when he took over in 1988 because the host of the weekly “Nationwide Singing Contest,” a town-by-town competitors that mixes down-home musical expertise, farcical costumes, poignant life tales and comedic episodes.
His expertise present, which he introduced together with his booming voice piped into households in South Korea each Sunday, ran for greater than three a long time. Mr. Music traveled to each nook of South Korea and to the Korean diaspora in locations like Japan and China, and even to Paraguay, Los Angeles and Lengthy Island, N.Y. He continued as host till the present went on hiatus in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, and formally remained at its helm on the time of his dying.
Whereas the present was on maintain, his well being appeared to deteriorate with out his weekly outlet, in accordance with Jero Yun, director of the documentary, “Music Hae 1927.”
“It was, in some methods, the driving drive of his life, assembly individuals from all walks of life via this system and exchanging life tales,” Mr. Yun mentioned. “Individuals would at all times acknowledge him, crowd round him and wish to speak to him.” Referring to the Okay-pop megagroup, Mr. Yun added, “He would possibly as properly have been BTS.”
Mr. Music was posthumously awarded a presidential medal for his contributions to South Korea’s tradition, the president’s workplace introduced on Wednesday. He was entered into Guinness World Information in April.
Mr. Music was born Music Bok-hee on April 27, 1927, underneath Japanese occupation in what's now Hwanghae Province in North Korea. His father was an innkeeper. A couple of months after the Korean Warfare broke out in 1950, he left his dwelling at 23 to keep away from being drafted to struggle for the North, and made his manner south. He finally boarded a U.N. tank touchdown ship, not realizing the place it was headed. Staring out on the water, he would later say, he renamed himself Hae, for the character that means sea.
He left behind his mom and a youthful sister in North Korea, and properly into his 90s, any point out of them would scale back him to tears.
After the ship took him to the South Korean metropolis of Busan, on the peninsula’s southern coast, he served as a signalman within the South’s military. He had mentioned in interviews that he was one of many troopers who tapped out the Morse code in July 1953 transmitting the message that there was a cease-fire halting the struggle.
After his discharge from the military, he peddled tofu in impoverished postwar South Korea earlier than becoming a member of a touring musical theater troupe, by which he sang and carried out in selection exhibits. He finally grew to become a radio host, anchoring a site visitors call-in present that catered to cab and bus drivers. It aired an occasional phase by which the drivers would dial in for a sing-off.
In 1952, Mr. Music married Suk Okay-ee, the sister of a fellow soldier he had served with within the struggle, they usually had three youngsters. After 63 years of marriage, Mr. Music and his spouse held the marriage ceremony they by no means had, having initially married within the poverty and turmoil of their youth. She died in 2018.
He's survived by two daughters, two granddaughters and a grandson. In 1986, his 21-year-old son was killed in a motorbike accident, and Mr. Music couldn't bear to proceed engaged on his radio site visitors present. Across the similar time, he was tapped to host the singing contest for the nationwide broadcaster, KBS.
With Mr. Music at its middle, the present rapidly grew to become a nationwide pastime, notably amongst older residents and people in rural communities — teams that this system spotlighted and that have been seldom seen on tv.
Grandmothers break-danced and rapped; grandfathers crooned attractive Okay-pop numbers. Numerous younger youngsters charmed the host onstage, a few of whom went on to change into stars. As soon as, a beekeeper lined in bees performed the harmonica whereas a panicked Mr. Music cried out, “There’s one in my pants!”
Mr. Music by no means fulfilled his lifelong dream of revisiting his hometown in North Korea, however due to his present, he got here tantalizingly shut.
In 2003, throughout a interval of détente between the Koreas, the present filmed an episode within the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. The songs have been fastidiously screened by the North’s censors to incorporate solely propagandist ones, and the environment was so tense that Mr. Music by no means broached the potential for visiting his hometown, Chaeryong, although it was simply 50 miles south of the capital, he mentioned in interviews.
At one level in the course of the journey, he recalled, he bought drunk together with his North Korean minder, who instructed him that he wouldn’t acknowledge his hometown anyway as a result of every little thing had modified within the intervening 5 a long time and the general public had moved away.
In a 2015 biography of Mr. Music, Oh Min-seok, a poet and professor of English literature, wrote: “As a refugee who fled south in the course of the Korean Warfare, there's a loneliness that's wedged in his coronary heart like a knot. He has no drawback connecting with anybody, from a 3-year-old to a 115-year-old, from a rustic lady to a school professor, from a shopkeeper to a C.E.O. That’s as a result of inside, he’s at all times pining for individuals.”
In South Korea, the present’s contestants and adoring followers grew to become his household. Girls — together with the present’s oldest contestant, a 115-year-old — took to calling him “oppa,” or older brother, Mr. Music later recalled.
“Who else on this planet can declare to have as many youthful sisters as I do?” he mentioned. “I’m joyful due to the individuals who enhance me, applaud me, consolation me.”
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